


Of a Boy's Weapon

by lostsparrow



Series: Portgas D. Ace Anthology [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Character Study, Childhood, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 01:42:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12048693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostsparrow/pseuds/lostsparrow
Summary: Unlikely though it seems, this contradiction between Ace not admitting to having a single drop of pride for being his father’s son - though there is room for debate in the matter of what is shown versus what might be felt - but not liking to have his name be spoken ill of, is part of canon.





	Of a Boy's Weapon

If someone asked Ace for how long he had been wielding that pipe of his, he would not know how to answer.

In his still short life, it seemed to him the artefact had been with him for more than half of it, which was not factually true - yet, Ace could not remember a day the pipe hadn’t been there, cold against his side or hot in his hand. For all he knew, it might as well have been there since his birth.

The boy was no fool. He knew he had been taken to Dawn Island while still a baby and babies were hapless creatures who couldn’t even contain their own snot inside their noses, let alone hold pipes. And, while he could not precise the exact date or age when he had gotten it, he remembered _how_ he had found it and how _right_ it had felt in his small hand. His new weapon. 

 **With it, he would smash whoever dared speak shit of Roger,** for in those days he was still bothering adults with the only question he seemed to care about - _What if Roger had a child?_ \- and, for reasons his still undeveloped mind couldn’t fathom, wouldn’t have anyone speak ill of him.*

Why should he defend the man he had already decided to hate? It made no sense. Yet, one bad word against Roger was enough to cause a reaction out of Ace, and a violent one at that.

As an adult looking back on his childhood memories, Ace could finally tell why ill talk of Roger would result in him beating up adults more than twice his size: he figured that, in the absence of his biological father to prove him wrong, those adults must be right in calling Roger a monster and, in so doing, calling him, Gol D. Ace, a _monster_ too.

He was just a kid.He only had one side of the story. How was he supposed to give consideration to anything else when the opinions that reached his ears and filled his heart with something dark and suffocating sounded so sure, therefore they must be true? 

 _He was just a kid_. How could he understand it any better, how could he force his brain to operate at levels he couldn’t yet grasp.

_**He was just a kid.** _

No kid deserved being called a monster, even if by extension, or find out the world was better off with his existence being raised while he remained, a spectre walking the land, unwanted and unloved and so _useless?_

Ace closed his eyes and let the breeze entering the window of his room caress his face, the starlight shining upon the very stars his mother had brought down from the sky and adorned his face with. 

If only he could tell his child self of the things he had learnt since...

No matter. 

As for the little boy, though he couldn’t recollect his first years any more than any of us can, he could still remember the first days with his new metal companion, which he held with all the strength of his clenched fist, guessing it should be enough to make a good use of it.

It wasn’t. Wielding a weapon is not enough to _make it a weapon_ , and Ace learnt it soon enough.

He would never forget the first time the pipe had come down against a skull. He would never forget the sound of the artificial gust and the metal and the bone. Or the cries of the older boy whose head he had smashed.

Regardless of his reasons for disliking it when Roger’s name was soiled, Ace would not suffer his own humiliation.

The older boy had overheard him ask his old question, always the same, and found it laughable that any little kid would waste his time asking about the late King’s possible offspring, as though he _wished_ to be his son.

Fighting him out of pure instinct, Ace had found his fists more effective than the pipe he did not yet know how to brandish and tears came to his eyes. Not from being beaten up, he told himself, but out of _anger_ for his only weapon failing him.

Then, it happened.

The boy, comfortable in the sense of victory he was having at beating up a younger kid - a stupid street rat who thought himself quite a man with his stupid pipe - said the worst thing he ever could, for his sake, as well as Ace’s.

Eyes still closed as he felt the night air, Ace saw it happening in his mind’s eye and his heart, with its muscley memory, recalled how the boy’s words had put him afire.

_**“Oh look, he’s crying. Are you crying? Why don’t you go cry to mummy?”** _

**Author's Note:**

> Unlikely though it seems, this contradiction between Ace not admitting to having a single drop of pride for being his father’s son - though there is room for debate in the matter of what is shown versus what might be felt - but not liking to have his name be spoken ill of, is part of canon.


End file.
